A Chilean court on Wednesday granted bail to ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet over a human rights case but his defense said he would find it hard to afford the $3,500 bond needed to end house arrest at his country estate.

The Santiago Appeals Court ratified the bail set two days earlier by Judge Juan Guzman, who has charged Pinochet with nine kidnappings and a murder in the cases of 10 leftists who disappeared or were killed in the 1970s.

The bail comes as 89-year-old Pinochet, who ruled Chile from 1973-1990, faces increasing scrutiny in a separate criminal investigation of fraud and tax evasion related to multi-million dollar off-shore accounts discovered last year.

"I've asked the court to lower the bail because we aren't in conditions to pay such a high bail because all of Pinochet's assets are frozen (due to the fraud investigation)," the retired general's defense attorney Pablo Rodriguez told reporters at Santiago's tribunal building.

But human rights lawyer Eduardo Contreras, who is part of the prosecution in the rights case against Pinochet, said the former leader was getting preferential treatment.

"Other delinquents don't get such low bail just a few days after being detained �� I can just imagine the effort his defense will have to do to round up the money for the poor guy," Contreras told reporters.

During the Pinochet era more than 3,000 people died or disappeared in political violence. After 15 years of center-left democratic leaders, Pinochet has become isolated and politically irrelevant as he fights off dozens of criminal complaints filed by rights lawyers and victims.

So far only two human rights cases against Pinochet have come close to trial. In 2002 one case was thrown out by the Supreme Court, which decided Pinochet was too mentally weak to stand trial.

The high court last week cleared an important hurdle in the murder and kidnapping charges brought by Guzman against Pinochet in the so-called Operation Condor case, throwing out a defense request for an injunction to block the charges.

Dozens of South American leftists were taken political prisoner, and died or disappeared under Operation Condor, a coordinated effort by the region's military leaders to help each other stamp out political opponents.

Source: Agencies